STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 349 



nothing. Begin in a small way. Yon will make some mistakes, 

 and will have much to learn. If you do everything well and at 

 the right time you cannot attend to much at first. Plant but 

 few varieties, and only such as generally succeed. You can well 

 afford to do without those new kinds that are ''destined to sup- 

 ersede all others." Be more practical than theoretical. Be 

 more ready to believe what you see than what you hear. Take 

 some good horticultural papers, and read them attentively. 

 Join a horticultural society if there is one within your reach. 

 Do your work well. Both profit and satisfaction come from a 

 little well done, rather than a large plantation grown in a slip- 

 shod manner. Sell no poor berries. They will injure your 

 credit more than they are worth. Use them, or give them to 

 those who have none and cannot afford to buy. 



Keep your plants growing during the growing season. Injure 

 no roots in cultivating. Plants make their own repairs, but they 

 should be better employed. The force expended in healing a 

 broken root might be more profitably used in building up the 

 plant or storing away nourishment for the next crop of fruit. 



All the berry plants do best on land that is rich, moist, — not 

 wet, — and cool. Without richness there is nothing to make 

 fruit of. Without moisture to dissolve the food in the soil 

 it is unavailable, for all plant food is taken uj) in solution. 

 Without a comparatively cool soil the plants cannot remain 

 healthy. Each plant should have plenty of room, and no other 

 root should be allowed to rob it of food and moisture. The sur- 

 face of the soil must be kept loose by stirring or mulching, so as 

 to admit air to the roots, for they cannot live without it. As a 

 plant can make its wants known only by signs, he who best un- 

 derstands these signs and is most faithful in supplying the wants 

 expressed by them, will succeed best. 



The fruit grower is an employer, and each plant set out is an 

 employe, which can accomplish much or little, according to the 

 master's knowledge of its needs, and his faithfulness in provid- 

 ing for them. Each plant set out is an independent establish- 

 ment, and, if not hindered, will go steadily on, doing the work 

 appointed to it by nature — gathering its food, and changing the 

 raw material, by means of the rain, the sunshine, and the at- 

 mosphere, into delicious fruit. It is a pleasant thought that the 

 plants which we set out and care for are so many little helpers 

 engaged in our service, and whether we sleep or wake, whether 

 we are sick or well, they still go on and on with their silent, 



